In other news, the National Theatre’s West End transfer of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has extended its run at the Apollo Theatre by 14 weeks, following huge demand for tickets. It now runs from 1 March to 31 August.

After a sell-out run at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Private Lives is coming to the Gielgud Theatre this summer. Starring Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor as the divorced couple who fall in love again, this classic Noel Coward comedy is directed by Jonathan Kent and runs from 22 June. Anthony Calf and Anna-Louise Plowman reprise their roles as the pair’s newly hitched and soon-to-be-spurned other halves.

Finally, don’t miss all the excitement building around the Olivier Awards. Firstly, theatre fans are being called on to vote for their favourite long-runner. Then there’s the news that Sheridan Smith (one of my favourite actresses) is going to be hosting the event. And not only is the show being broadcast live on BBC Radio 2, there’ll be highlights on ITV following the ceremony AND a live event for theatre fans in Covent Garden on the night. Put 28 April in your diaries now for a lot of theatrical fun.

London Casting News:

• Mariah Gale, Jamie Parker, Emma Cunniffe and Matthew Marsh will star in Proof at the Menier Chocolate Factory from March
• Jennifer Ellison is donning her wellingtons to join the cast of Singin’ In The Rain next month, when it splashes into its second year at the Palace Theatre
• Olivier Award winner Henry Goodman leads the cast of Lindsay Posner’s forthcoming production of The Winslow Boy at the Old Vic, opening in March
• Singer songwriter Declan Bennett and Croatian actress Zrinka Cvitešić are going to lead the cast of the Tony Award-winning musical Once when it opens at the Phoenix Theatre from 16 March

Second, there’s a new musical on the horizon. A Chorus Line opens at the London Palladium next year: the first London revival of the show ever. Featuring the iconic songs One (Singular Sensations), What I Did For Love, I Can Do That and Hope I Get It, the Olivier Award-winning musical is the story of 17 dancers auditioning for a Broadway show. It’ll play a limited season from 2 February (press night 19 February) to 29 June.

London Cast News

• Janie Dee will lead the cast of NSFW at the Royal Court, Lucy Kirkwood’s debut play opening in late October
• Tricycle season regular Simon Chandler and Charlotte Lucas (last seen in Posh) are among the cast joining Adrian Lester in Red Velvet at the Tricycle theatre
• West End star Oliver Tompsett is swapping one rocking West End musical for another as he’s leaving Rock Of Ages to join We Will Rock You in October
• Conleth Hill, Will Keen, Felicity Montagu and Malcolm Sinclair will join the previously announced Rowan Atkinson in Quartermaine’s Terms at Wyndham’s Theatre
• Damian Humbley, Jenna Russell and Mark Umbers return to the Menier Chocolate Factory this winter to star in Maria Friedman’s forthcoming production of Merrily We Roll Along

London Shows Extending

• Chariots of Fire has extended its West End run at the Gielgud Theatre until 2 February 2013
• Top Hat has extended its booking period at the Aldwych Theatre until 28 September 2013
• Matilda is now booking at the Cambridge theatre until 22 December 2013

So what’s coming up in this melting pot of money, success and creativity? Well, this week I’ve learnt the Hampstead Theatre is getting in on the mania for all things Olympic by staging a theatrical adaptation of the Oscar-winning film, Chariots of Fire. The play will run from 9 May to 16 June. Mike Bartlett (who wrote Cock and Earthquakes in London) is writing the script, and Hampstead Theatre’s Artistic Director, Edward Hall will direct. More details on the casting of the two runners (Scottish Christian Eric Liddell and English Jew Harold Abrahams) in due course.

Two chaps who won’t be donning the running shorts(!) are Danny DeVito and Richard Griffiths, because they’re to appear in Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys at the Savoy Theatre.

The play is a classic comedy of showbiz and friendship from the 1970s; or you might know it from the Oscar-winning film starring George Burns and Walter Matthau; or the high-profile TV version with Woody Allen and Peter Falk. This will be DeVito’s West End debut; he’s better known for his film acting, including Terms of Endearment, Batman Returns, Junior and Twins. In contrast, his co-star Richard Griffiths is a regular on the London stage, including The History Boys, The Habit of Art, Rules of the Game, and The White Guard. It’ll make an interesting pairing: I can’t wait.

This Week’s London Cast News

• Andy Nyman, Natalie Casey, Joe Absolom and Susannah Harker join the already-announced Jill Halfpenny in Abigail’s Party at the Menier Chocolate Factory from March. This is shaping up to be a very exciting cast list!
• Noel Sullivan, who you’ll remember from Hear’Say joins the cast of We Will Rock You next month, replacing Alex Gaumond in the role of Galileo
• Natalie Dormer, Kieran Bew and Polly Frame will star in the Young Vic’s revival of Patrick Marber’s play After Miss Julie from March
• Finally, Claire Sweeney (Chicago, Guys and Dolls, Legally Blonde) and Matthew Kelly (best-known as the host of TV’s Stars in Their Eyes) are appearing in a revival of Educating Rita at the Menier Chocolate Factory from April

More next week.

Simon Callow is bringing his one-man show, Being Shakespeare, back to London in March, for a strictly limited run. He’ll be at the Trafalgar Studios from 7 to 31 March, bringing a multitude of the bard’s most famous creations to life. It’ll be the perfect warm-up for the World Shakespeare Festival which kicks off the following month.

Another March date for your diaries is Thursday 15, when Complicite and Simon McBurney return to the Barbican (following the success of Shun-Kin and A Disappearing Number) with a new English adaptation of Master and Margarita. It’s a stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s rich magical realist novel about the struggle between evil and compassion. I’m a big fan of Complicite’s work, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this one.

Finally, the Reduced Shakespeare Company are back for in London in 2012, bringing The Complete World of Sports (abridged) to the Arts Theatre for a six-week run from 18 July to 25 August, to coincide with the London 2012 Olympic Games. The show’s described as “every sport even played on every continent in the entire history of the world in under two hours!”. It’s a clever idea from clever boys, and I wish them luck!

London Casting News

• One of my favourite actors, Jill Halfpenny, is returning to London, to play Beverly in Abigail’s Party at the Menier Chocolate Factory from 2 March
• Another great British star, Tara Fitzgerald, will appear opposite Ben Chaplin and Jemma Redgrave in Farewell To The Theatre at the Hampstead Theatre from 1 March
• Stand-up comic and actor Ardal O’Hanlon is playing the lead in a new production of Port Authority at the Southwark Playhouse from 24 January
• Finally, I’ve got details of the lucky ladies playing alongside Zach Braff in All New People at the Duke of York’s Theatre from February. Both Eve Myles and Susannah Fielding have previously worked with the RSC, and both have strong sci-fi links: Myles plays Gwen in Torchwood; Fielding has appeared in Doctor Who. I wish them both well with their return to theatre

More next week…

On a more positive note, after 12 years, long-running musical Mamma Mia! is moving. I’ve yet to confirm the exact dates, but the hit ABBA show is moving from the Prince of Wales theatre to the Novello on Aldwych, following the excellent Crazy For You. More details when I have them!

The Young Vic has announced a new show: theatre company Sound&Fury are bringing Going Dark to the venue next March. It’s going to be an immersive show with interesting lighting, projections and sound, about a narrator in a planetarium.

Finally, the Evening Standard Theatre Awards longlist has been announced. Congratulations to the National Theatre, Matilda The Musical, Shakespeare’s Globe, Crazy for You and more who’ve all been nominated. I wouldn’t like to be the judge choosing between Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller, James Corden, Ralph Fiennes, Kevin Spacey and Jude Law for the Best Actor category…

This Week’s London Cast News:

• Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally and Olivia Colman will star in Noël Coward’s Hay Fever at, appropriately, the Noël Coward Theatre from 10 February next year
• Ann Emery, the original Grandma in Billy Elliot is returning to the show at the Victoria Palace from November
• Exciting news from the Menier: Frances Ruffelle (Eponine to you and me!) and Matt Rawle (who was so wonderful in Zorro) are to star in Pippin, the venue’s Christmas show.
• More Christmas news: Simon Callow will star in a new version of Charles Dickens’ festive classic, A Christmas Carol at the Arts Theatre from 8 Dec

New play The Riots will open the season on 17 November, written by Tricycle theatre regular Gillian Slovo. Slovo worked with Kent on the hugely acclaimed Guantanamo – Honor Bound To Defend Freedom. The Riots uses accounts from police, victims, onlookers, politicians, teachers, lawyers and community victims to explore what happened in London this summer and why.

The Bomb – A Partial History closes the season, running from 9 February to 1 April, and features a number of playwrights creating short pieces inspired by a central theme. Sandwiched in between is the Olivier Award-winning comedy Stones In His Pockets, directed by another regular at the Tricycle, Indhu Rubasingham.

Second, news of a new musical at the fantastic Menier Chocolate Factory. Pippin is a Tony Award-winning show by Stephen Schwartz with a coming-of-age storyline. It was first staged on Broadway in 1972, featuring Bob “Chicago” Fosse choreography. This new production is directed by Mitch Sebastian who promises to incorporate Fosse’s original choreography into his “high-concept” show. It all sounds very exciting, and I can’t wait to bring you some cast news!

Talking of casting, here’s the latest:

• TV Costume drama regular Warren Clarke plays Winston Churchill in Ben Brown’s Three Days in May at the Trafalgar Studios from the end of October
• Younger readers will recognise Ben Hanson as Bouncer from the CBBC show Tracey Beaker. This Christmas he’ll be leading the cast of Lazy Elf at the Arts Theatre from 10 to 22 December
• Two Legally Blonde stars, Simon Thomas and Siobhan Dillon, are to appear in Ex at the Soho Theatre from 10 November. They’re joined by Amy Booth-Steel and Gabriel Vick
• Finally, Craig Warnock is the new Perks in The Railway Children at the Waterloo Station Theatre, following a turn as the famous station master in the Toronto production of the show

More next week…

In other cast news, Joanna Riding’s been announced for new musical Lend Me A Tenor at the Gielgud Theatre. She’s currently at the same venue in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I wonder if she can keep the same dressing room?!

There’s more news for musicals fans (hurrah!):

• A stage adaptation of Top Hat starring Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen (in the roles made famous by tap-dancing king and queen Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) is coming to the West End in spring 2012, following a UK tour.
• Road Show, the latest musical by Stephen Sondheim, will get a UK premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory this summer, with a cast led by David Bedella.
• Musical comedy Betwixt! comes to the Trafalgar Studios from July, bringing a bizarre mix of music, writer’s block, disembodied heads, sex-crazed nymphs and hunchbacks to the venue.

On a more serious note, there’ll be yet another King Lear in the capital next year. This time, the venue’s the Almeida Theatre, Michael Attenborough’s directing and Jonathan Pryce is the ageing monarch.

Finally, the transformed Cottesloe theatre is hosting four new plays by four playwrights new to the National this summer:

• Sam Holcroft’s Edgar And Annabel features a young married couple in a world of freedom fighters and a police state in crisis
• The Swan by DC Moore follows a family preparing for a wake in a South London pub
• Prasanna Puwanarajah’s Nightwatchman challenges ideas of politics, sport and national pride through the story of a female cricketer preparing to make her England debut
• Tom Basden’s black comedy There Is A War is set in a land ravaged by an ever-raging civil war

The plays will be performed as two double bills from 8 July until 30 August.

Omigod! Lee Mead is joining the cast of Legally Blonde from mid-June.

The winner of TV talent show Any Dream Will Do will replace original cast member Alex Gaumond in the role of Emmett Forest.

Since winning Any Dream Will Do, Lee Mead has starred in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (from 2007 to 2009) and more recently, as Fiyero in long-running musical Wicked. The announcement comes in a big week for Legally Blonde The Musical: the show won three awards at the Oliviers on Sunday.

It’s also great news for his wife, Denise van Outen, who’s currently playing in the same show. Can anyone give us any other husband and wife couples from West End musical casts? Tell us in the comments below, please!

And I’ve another piece of casting news, this time from the Menier Chocolate Factory. Their new musial, Smash! will now be starring West Wing star Richard Schiff instead of Kerry Shale, who has withdrawn from the show for personal reasons. Schiff joins Laurence Olivier Award winner Tom Conti in Jack Rosenthal’s rarely performed comedy.

In other theatre news this week, British writer Stephen Poliakoff is returning to theatre after 12 years, with a new play at the Almeida Theatre in the autumn. Poliakoff has written more for screen than stage in recent years, but returns with drama My City in September. Other news from the Almeida includes Neil LaBute’s Reasons To Be Pretty, coming to the theatre from November. If you’re a Neil LaBute fan, and you can’t wait for this, check out In A Forest, Dark And Deep currently showing at the Vaudeville.

Finally, last year’s hit production of Yes, Prime Minister is back! You can catch the pun-filled political powerplay at the Apollo Theatre from 6 July until 17 September. British PM Jim Hacker and Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby will be played Richard McCabe and Simon Williams, who are currently starring in the touring production.

If you’re not able to catch Ruby Wax at the Menier Chocolate Factory, where she’s currently performing Losing It (until 19 March), you’ll be pleased to hear she’s coming back in the summer.

You can now catch her show, which deals with the darkest moments of depression through poignant prose and funny songs for five weeks from 17 May.

Second up: great news about a return London journey for The Railway Children. The hit London show is back at its unique venue inside the former Eurostar terminal at Waterloo Station from 18 June until 4 September. If the you know anyone who’s a fan of E Nesbit’s book, trains, or just fantastic family entertainment, I’d thoroughly recommend taking them along to this show…

Finally, another fantastic family hit gets a cast refresh. Nicola Stephenson and Patrick Robinson join the cast of War Horse next week. The actors are best known for inhabiting the hallways of Holby General; they’ll now be playing in Michael Morpurgo’s Second World War drama at the New London Theatre.

Stephenson will play the protagonist’s mother, left worrying for her son’s life when he runs away to worn-torn France in search of his beloved horse, Joey. The actress’s numerous TV credits include Clocking Off, Law And Order and Larkrise To Candleford. Robinson plays German soldier Friedrich Muller. In addition to Casualty, Robinson is well known for his work on ITV drama The Bill. The pair joins War Horse as it enters its fifth year; the show’s recently celebrated its one millionth customer.

Finally, have you voted for your favourite show in the BBC Radio 2 Olivier Audience Award? The shortlist makes decisions difficult, with 4 fantastic musicals fighting it out for this year’s prize:

• Billy Elliot
• Les Miserables
• Jersey Boys
• We Will Rock You

Have your say now at www.olivierawards.com/vote. The winner will be announced at the Olivier Awards on 13 March.

Yesterday I popped into Heaven & Earth, a striking new exhibition of African photography at the Menier Gallery.

Snapped by Cape Town photographer Caroline Gibello, the sundrenched, over-exposed photos show the wildlife, landscape and people of Botswana and Namibia in a new light – literally.

Instead of lush greenery and the bright colours we usually associate with Africa, the photos have a stark, dried-out feel. This is intensified by the choice of subject matter – the cracked texture of elephant hide, dry grasses and local people walking through clouds of dust.

The photos reminded me of the increasing water shortages in Africa, and beyond. However, the unusual beauty of the wildlife and landscape, plus joyful photo names such as Courage, Spirit and Reverence, can’t help but lift your spirit.

Judge for yourself by stopping in at the exhibition. Make a night of it by nipping next door to Menier Chocolate Factory for dinner or to catch Samuel and Timothy West in A Number, the downstairs theatre’s thought-provoking new show.

Myerson Fine Art presents Heaven & Earth at Menier Gallery until 30 October.  Entrance is free.